Ergonomics of playing games

[hoggy]

I don't really play games anymore, and the most frequent advice on them in the ergo subforum is to give them up.  I'm certainly not saying that's wrong, but I'm wondering if there's some middle ground, some advice we could give out to those who are having real difficulties in giving them up, in spite of having pain.

Any thoughts? Are you in this boat, or are firmly of the opinion of dropping them right now, or have some ideas that worked for you?

[Oobly]

I don't really play games anymore, and the most frequent advice on them in the ergo subforum is to give them up.  I'm certainly not saying that's wrong, but I'm wondering if there's some middle ground, some advice we could give out to those who are having real difficulties in giving them up, in spite of having pain.

Any thoughts? Are you in this boat, or are firmly of the opinion of dropping them right now, or have some ideas that worked for you?

I don't play often any more, but that's just due to time constraints.

A couple of things that helped me:

1. build up a palm rest for the keyboard hand so your wrist can remain straight while using it if you're playing a game that requires prolonged pressed keys (like forwards for example). You should rest the nub of your palm on the rest, kind of like a pivot, without the rest of your wrist / palm touching.

2. If you're using a "normal" board, angle the board with the left side further away and the right side towards you, so the fingers rest more naturally on the keys at the correct angle. This prevents twisting the wrist.

3. Not completely ergonomics related, but on a normal board consider using ESDF instead of WASD. It gives you more keys in immediate reach for extra actions and moves your hands a little closer to each other.

4. Try to find a mouse that has an angled surface rather than an ambidextrous or flat one to prevent pronation.

5. Use the same building up a rest to have straight wrists and resting the nub of the palm trick with the mouse, although this is harder due to the mouse movements and position, especially if you're a low sensitivity FPS player.

6. Adjust the mouse pad and arm angle similar to the keyboard (angled "inwards").

7. Use a small keyboard like a 60% or TKL (or use IJKL or numpad) to allow your hands to be closer together while playing.

[jacobolus]

I don’t really play games, but it seems to me as an outsider that different games have radically different control schemes.

Some games are mostly reliant on mouse movements and spamming mouse clicks. Some games use a huge number of key shortcuts spread out across the whole keyboard (or across one side). Some games seem to mostly involve holding down direction keys (WASD or whatever) and pressing a few other keys sporadically. Some games seem to require very quickly spamming a small handful of keys, either one key repeatedly, or a pattern of keys.

Regular typing keypresses, holding keys down, and repeatedly spamming a key as fast as possible are all very different kinds of finger/hand/arm motions.

I would be fascinated to see some serious motion studies of professional or serious amateur video game competitors.

From what I understand, some game communities (e.g. professional starcraft players in Korea) have figured out a set of hand motions which optimize performance given certain set game control setups, but I haven’t seen any evidence that such patterns or the players’ practice/training regimens pay specific attention to ergonomics or injury prevention.

[cannonking]

From what I understand, some game communities (e.g. professional starcraft players in Korea) have figured out a set of hand motions which optimize performance given certain set game control setups, but I haven’t seen any evidence that such patterns or the players’ practice/training regimens pay specific attention to ergonomics or injury prevention.

Actually most Koreans are pretty bad when it comes to utilizing their keyboard efficiently, but some foreigner pros have put a lot of effort into it -- mainly TeamLiquid's players. StarCraft 1 didn't let you change your hotkeys and players had to move their left hand all over the keyboard as a result, for example Protoss would have to press the P key a lot. In StarCraft II you can remap hotkeys but a lot of Koreans leave it as default and some even use a hotkey setup that mirrors the grossly inefficient SC1 hotkeys.

There's also this cool project, but no pros use it because they aren't sure if it'll be worth the long amount of time they'd have to spend adapting:

t=53

[jacobolus]

From what I understand, some game communities (e.g. professional starcraft players in Korea) have figured out a set of hand motions which optimize performance given certain set game control setups, but I haven’t seen any evidence that such patterns or the players’ practice/training regimens pay specific attention to ergonomics or injury prevention.

Actually most Koreans are pretty bad when it comes to utilizing their keyboard efficiently, [...] StarCraft 1 didn't let you change your hotkeys and players had to move their left hand all over the keyboard as a result,

Yes, starcraft 1 players is what I was talking about. I’m not an expert, but from what I understand, they figured out specific training regimens and hand movement patterns to optimize their performance despite the difficult control scheme.

I’d say it’s rather unfair to say they’re “bad when it comes to utilizing their keyboard efficiently”. Just watch some video of their hands sometime, they’re incredibly fast. From what I understand the Korean professionals are substantially faster than everyone else in the world, due mostly to their grueling practice.

[cannonking]

From what I understand, some game communities (e.g. professional starcraft players in Korea) have figured out a set of hand motions which optimize performance given certain set game control setups, but I haven�t seen any evidence that such patterns or the players� practice/training regimens pay specific attention to ergonomics or injury prevention.

Actually most Koreans are pretty bad when it comes to utilizing their keyboard efficiently, [...] StarCraft 1 didn't let you change your hotkeys and players had to move their left hand all over the keyboard as a result,

Yes, starcraft 1 players is what I was talking about. I�m not an expert, but from what I understand, they figured out specific training regimens and hand movement patterns to optimize their performance despite the difficult control scheme.

I�d say it�s rather unfair to say they�re �bad when it comes to utilizing their keyboard efficiently�. Just watch some video of their hands sometime, they�re incredibly fast. From what I understand the Korean professionals are substantially faster than everyone else in the world, due mostly to their grueling practice.

I'm definitely not disrespecting Korean SC2 progamers, watching them is by far my biggest hobby . They're better than everyone else and super fast in spite of their hotkeys not because of them. There was a two hour long talkshow on hotkeys about a year ago (can't find it at the moment) where they talked about this in detail. TLO said something along the lines of 'I still see several Korean Terrans at tournaments who lose games because they couldn't move their hand over to press L fast enough to raise their depot', there are also a lot of neat things you can do to reduce the number of keypresses you need to do for certain things that they don't do.

[SonOfSonOfSpock]

I got an Xbox controller to plug into my computer. It made it so I could still play computer games. Not all games have controller support, so you have to confirm that they have it before buying something. Also, my preferences for games matches up with those that are easily played with a controller. I know this wouldn't be the case for everyone, but given the option of "no games" and "games with a controller" I'll pick being able to continue enjoying video games.

[Altis]

OP, what types of games are you interested in playing? For what kind of durations at a time?

[jacobolus]

OP, what types of games are you interested in playing?

I don't really play games anymore [...] but I'm wondering if there's [...] some advice we could give out to those who are having real difficulties

[4sStylZ]

Hi,

Since now five years I have buyed two Gaming Gamepad. The Nostromo from Razer, changed because of some ghosting issues and the G13 from Logitech.
The aren’t perfect (not very reliable) but I recommand you to think about a matricial layout like on this two keypad. When this is good for type, why don’t think that this isn’t for gaming?

And there is more : In fact these keyboard have less keys than usual keyboards, but in sentation you have more : You don’t have the ****ty Windows key, and with your thumb you can access to a joystick (****ty one on the Nostromo) wich is very good for some action like scrolling/Zooming the minimap in a MOBA or FPS.

Other tips : With that, you can move the keyboard in the extreme left, not in front of you. That’s not possible with the primary keyboard without constantly move-it.
You don’t need the right side on a gaming keyboard. You can use a regular keyboard for typing a text.

They have wrist pad and the Nostromo have the wrist pad with a very good inclinaison more comfortable than any of my Griffiti big ass pad.

(Old post, but this is my first post here and I don’t know if this is a bad thing here. Sorry for my bad English too :x).

[kasakka]

For most with issues playing games on the mouse and keyboard maybe a game controller would be fine. I love the Steam Controller on PC and use it a lot, it's extremely configurable.

[natas206]

As a longtime Advantage user, games have always been tricky for me, so I typically had to resort to breaking out a non-ergonomic flat keyboard while gaming.

We are coming out with a new mechanical gaming Freesytle keyboard later this year which will use the same technology as the Advantage2 keyboard, meaning it will be fully programmable (no software/drivers required, on-board programming). I think for some people, this will be the "best of both worlds" when it comes to ergonomics and a gaming keyboard. I know a few people who tested out a very early beta (wasn't even mechanical yet at that point), moved the right half of the keyboard out of the way and just had the left side active, with their gaming mouse to the right. That seemed to make a lot of sense. Plus with the on-board programming features, seems like for a lot of games you can get pretty much all you need on the left side. With the multiple layouts, you could then switch back to your regular layout when you're not gaming. I'm eager to try this personally. First and most importantly though, I need to upgrade my PC! 

[xtrafrood]

I don't really play games anymore, and the most frequent advice on them in the ergo subforum is to give them up.  I'm certainly not saying that's wrong, but I'm wondering if there's some middle ground, some advice we could give out to those who are having real difficulties in giving them up, in spite of having pain.

Any thoughts? Are you in this boat, or are firmly of the opinion of dropping them right now, or have some ideas that worked for you?

2. If you're using a "normal" board, angle the board with the left side further away and the right side towards you, so the fingers rest more naturally on the keys at the correct angle. This prevents twisting the wrist.

I would do this back when I was playing often enough for it to matter.  Especially the really wacky MMORPGs that require 1-8 and F1-F8 (or more) for attack/defense/roll/whatever. I can log into one of those MMORPGs and play for 2-48hrs straight if the storyline keeps me busy. It was bad--actually was one of the reasons I keep track of click rating. I've already worn through keyboards rated for 1.5m, and 5m 'clicks'.

These days I forget I have the option to load up the occasional game. I have dozens of DOS titles still waiting in my queue of games to try, but most of my free time is spent researching, acquiring hardware, and adulting.

[Niomosy]

As a longtime Advantage user, games have always been tricky for me, so I typically had to resort to breaking out a non-ergonomic flat keyboard while gaming.

We are coming out with a new mechanical gaming Freesytle keyboard later this year which will use the same technology as the Advantage2 keyboard, meaning it will be fully programmable (no software/drivers required, on-board programming). I think for some people, this will be the "best of both worlds" when it comes to ergonomics and a gaming keyboard. I know a few people who tested out a very early beta (wasn't even mechanical yet at that point), moved the right half of the keyboard out of the way and just had the left side active, with their gaming mouse to the right. That seemed to make a lot of sense. Plus with the on-board programming features, seems like for a lot of games you can get pretty much all you need on the left side. With the multiple layouts, you could then switch back to your regular layout when you're not gaming. I'm eager to try this personally. First and most importantly though, I need to upgrade my PC! 

A mechanical Freestyle would definitely be closer to ideal for many of us provided the layout stays the game (extra buttons on the left are handy for some games as is the 6 on the left).  Now if someone would come out with a single tented/split case ala MS Ergo I'd be set on keyboards.

[Maave]

I had to give up mouse based games - really bad desk layout and waaay too much clicking gave me RSI.

Controllers: Controllers are fairly easy to use though, I can play for a few hours without issue. After the wrist issues I had dualshock 3 controller mapped with GlovePIE to reduce mouse and keyboard usage, and I used it for TF2 (emulating a 360 controller which is standard in games). It sort of works for classes that aren't dependent on aim but everyone can easily outshoot you. There are console versions but they're years behind on updates and I'm not interested in TF2 anymore.

Motion controls: I've been playing Splatoon quite a lot for a couple months which uses a controller with motion/gyro controls for aiming. Motion is leagues ahead of joystick controls - it gives you the absolute movement of a mouse that allows for twitch shooting, quick 180s, and smooth movement. Compare that to a joystick which moves the camera at a max speed and you wait for it to pan over the target. Probably not as good as mice but I haven't compared. I haven't used the DS3 for a while so I haven't tried mapping motion controls to the mouse.

I've also started using foot pedals so that I don't have to click with my index finger. Too soon to see if it works but you might consider it if you already own pedals. The downside is slower response time - the pedals have much longer travel than any mouse click.

[yellowfour]

I have very little problem gaming on Kinesis Advantage under Dvorak. Most games allow you to remap keys, and that works great for the most part. Kinesis with thumb cluster even works better and faster than standard keyboard layouts. Most importantly, the ergonomic design means my fingers don't get tired or strained--can play for hours without distorting and straining my fingers. In particular, much less pinky and more thumb power.

Getting a mouse with a lot of buttons that can be reprogrammed is very helpful. I got Logitech MX Revolution that has about nine customizable buttons. I assume people leave these buttons to their default actions. However, I customize them for text editing (space, backspace, enter, ctrl-c, ctrl-v). Fortunately most games accept these keys as bindable to in-game actions.

I even go as far and assume people leave bindings to their default keys. I can never accept them because it seems they're so unergonomic and counter-productive. Including the standard WASD, which I really don't see why it's more acceptable than ESDF. Reaching over to hit 6 to 0; I don't think so.

[Maave]

Getting a mouse with a lot of buttons that can be reprogrammed is very helpful. I got Logitech MX Revolution that has about nine customizable buttons. I assume people leave these buttons to their default actions. However, I customize them for text editing (space, backspace, enter, ctrl-c, ctrl-v). Fortunately most games accept these keys as bindable to in-game actions.

copy/paste on the mouse sounds very handy, wish I had thought of that. A "double click" button might be handy too to reduce strain - opening programs or highlighting single words

[vvp]

In my opinion, if your game supports key remapping then Kinesis Advantage is better for the game than a standard flat keyboard.

[Coreda]

For a mouse alternative see if there's some place you can try a decent graphics tablet stylus. If you find it comfortable holding a pen very loosely it's literally like that and can be held at any angle. Using a Wacom Intuos I can hover about an inch over the surface to move the cursor (using the mouse mode setting) and use the two side buttons for the left/right click with either my thumb or forefinger (or by touching the tablet with the stylus tip). Miles more comfortable than a mouse which earlier in the year I needed some relief from.

For games I've found it comfortable and decent though some may prefer a few extra buttons and a lower lift-off distance (since the hover movement is rather high). I don't have such an issue with the latter as it's easy enough to hold the stylus at any angle/distance above the tablet to begin with.

[Niomosy]

In my opinion, if your game supports key remapping then Kinesis Advantage is better for the game than a standard flat keyboard.

Depends on your gaming needs.  For key-heavy games, some of the remapping gets tricky on an Advantage.  You would essentially lose the entire right half of the board unless you take your hand off the mouse, a problem that doesn't exist on a standard keyboard or even something like an MS Ergo board.  I would think an MMO type mouse with additional buttons might be beneficial here to migrate some key combinations onto the mouse.

[yellowfour]

In my opinion, if your game supports key remapping then Kinesis Advantage is better for the game than a standard flat keyboard.

Depends on your gaming needs. For key-heavy games, some of the remapping gets tricky on an Advantage.  You would essentially lose the entire right half of the board unless you take your hand off the mouse, a problem that doesn't exist on a standard keyboard or even something like an MS Ergo board.  I would think an MMO type mouse with additional buttons might be beneficial here to migrate some key combinations onto the mouse.

This sounds more like people not properly setting up bindings for MMOs (and probably any game for that matter.)

MMO is probably the genre I spent most the time on in the last 15 years, and I have no trouble playing them on Kinesis. Again reiterate the games' default bindings are in no way ergonomic or efficient. Why are fast-action buttons on far-away numbers and right half of the keyboard, while less urgent UI access and chat on the left hand? In other words, the right half of the keyboard is not efficient in any capacity for games.

The left hand has fast access to about 34 keys. That should be enough for the most critical tasks, including movement--including auto-run (they put a crucial movement action all the way at the num-lock. really?)--10 to 15 action keys, and miscellaneous common actions (change targets, map, inventory, etc.) There's also Shift and Ctrl to double and triple the amount of bindings performable from the left hand alone. Including more actions (pets?), switch action bars, quick targets, etc.

In conclusion, my left hand can perform over 50 different actions, so why would I lament the inefficient right half of the keyboard? I do put non-critical tasks on the right hand, mainly shortcuts to UI panels, but most of the time I can access the same stuff by moving the mouse.

[xtrafrood]

In my opinion, if your game supports key remapping then Kinesis Advantage is better for the game than a standard flat keyboard.

Depends on your gaming needs. For key-heavy games, some of the remapping gets tricky on an Advantage.  You would essentially lose the entire right half of the board unless you take your hand off the mouse, a problem that doesn't exist on a standard keyboard or even something like an MS Ergo board.  I would think an MMO type mouse with additional buttons might be beneficial here to migrate some key combinations onto the mouse.

This sounds more like people not properly setting up bindings for MMOs (and probably any game for that matter.)

MMO is probably the genre I spent most the time on in the last 15 years, and I have no trouble playing them on Kinesis. Again reiterate the games' default bindings are in no way ergonomic or efficient. Why are fast-action buttons on far-away numbers and right half of the keyboard, while less urgent UI access and chat on the left hand? In other words, the right half of the keyboard is not efficient in any capacity for games.

The left hand has fast access to about 34 keys. That should be enough for the most critical tasks, including movement--including auto-run (they put a crucial movement action all the way at the num-lock. really?)--10 to 15 action keys, and miscellaneous common actions (change targets, map, inventory, etc.) There's also Shift and Ctrl to double and triple the amount of bindings performable from the left hand alone. Including more actions (pets?), switch action bars, quick targets, etc.

In conclusion, my left hand can perform over 50 different actions, so why would I lament the inefficient right half of the keyboard? I do put non-critical tasks on the right hand, mainly shortcuts to UI panels, but most of the time I can access the same stuff by moving the mouse.

I remapped a ton of macros/functions (mouse hover + action, UI scripting, etc) to the left side of boring 104 key keyboards and just plain ran out of room. I guess everyone's mileage will vary. I'll probably migrate to a PC122 or K95 for gaming tbh + a mmo mouse. Unless I follow through with a custom split design. Or I quit playing MMOs altogether because I'm insane. I'd rather angle the keyboard than lose access to those extra keys (right-hand side) is all I'm really saying in this lengthy reply.

[Niomosy]

In my opinion, if your game supports key remapping then Kinesis Advantage is better for the game than a standard flat keyboard.

Depends on your gaming needs. For key-heavy games, some of the remapping gets tricky on an Advantage.  You would essentially lose the entire right half of the board unless you take your hand off the mouse, a problem that doesn't exist on a standard keyboard or even something like an MS Ergo board.  I would think an MMO type mouse with additional buttons might be beneficial here to migrate some key combinations onto the mouse.

This sounds more like people not properly setting up bindings for MMOs (and probably any game for that matter.)

MMO is probably the genre I spent most the time on in the last 15 years, and I have no trouble playing them on Kinesis. Again reiterate the games' default bindings are in no way ergonomic or efficient. Why are fast-action buttons on far-away numbers and right half of the keyboard, while less urgent UI access and chat on the left hand? In other words, the right half of the keyboard is not efficient in any capacity for games.

The left hand has fast access to about 34 keys. That should be enough for the most critical tasks, including movement--including auto-run (they put a crucial movement action all the way at the num-lock. really?)--10 to 15 action keys, and miscellaneous common actions (change targets, map, inventory, etc.) There's also Shift and Ctrl to double and triple the amount of bindings performable from the left hand alone. Including more actions (pets?), switch action bars, quick targets, etc.

In conclusion, my left hand can perform over 50 different actions, so why would I lament the inefficient right half of the keyboard? I do put non-critical tasks on the right hand, mainly shortcuts to UI panels, but most of the time I can access the same stuff by moving the mouse.

I already do most of that, though really don't implement any Shift items other than Shift-# for switching to another 1-10 row and I really only use Shift-1 as main stuff and Shift-2 as utility stuff I'm not going to bind to Alt or Ctrl.  Usually it's just specialty stuff I'm not using in combat for quests or such.  I do use Ctrl and Alt a lot, then leave others to click-only items.  I leave the right side to non-critical stuff like mounting, maps, and a few other things.  I'd probably have to remap a few things like maps to something left-hand accessible.  And hey, chat is critical, dammit! 

That said, the extra left-side keys of something like the IBM 122 board or V.EA would be particularly nice on something like an MS Ergo keyboard, which I've gamed on in a few forms for decades.